5. Ricketts' Circus in the Capital City, Part Three

(© Podcast text copyright 2021 by Peter Schmitz. All rights reserved.)

Welcome to Adventures in Theater History. This is Part Three of the story about Ricketts' Circus in the Capital City. 

When we left off, we were discussing how the British equestrian John Bill Ricketts had learned his trade in the increasingly theatrical popular form of entertainment known as “the circus” that involved men and horses - along with a few clowns and acrobats. Ricketts brought his horses and his company to the new nation of the United States in the early 1790s.

We have detailed, in Part One of our story, how Ricketts arrived in America in 1792. He landed in and then performed in Boston, then he traveled down the New England coastal towns along Long Island Sound, doing shows as he went.

He came through New York City and did shows there - on the corner of Broadway and Greenwich Street, one of the earliest ever known Broadway shows, in fact. 

But at that time New York was not a very grand or impressive city. It was still recovering from the rather rough spell it had gone through during the American Revolution. It had very briefly been the capital city of the United States, but then the seat of government, with Congress and the Supreme Court and the Treasury and all the rest, had moved to Philadelphia.

Ricketts never stayed in one city for too long, as we mentioned last time. Ricketts, like any touring performer, wanting to be a hit when he reached the center of things, and had finally arrived and settled in Philadelphia by the Fall of 1792, and he set up a riding school and an amphitheater at the corner of 12th and Market Streets.

Ricketts had even recruited the first truly American member of the company, a seven year-old boy billed as “Master Strobach,” to perform as “Mercury” in his signature routine. 

We’ve already seen how he gained the attention and evident approval of President George Washington, how he charmed many of the members of Philadelphia's upper crust, and how he gladly took the money of crowds of everyone else who came to see his equestrian entertainments in April and May of 1793.  

Attendance at the Market and Twelfth street location seems to have been sufficient enough to allow Ricketts to announce that he had delayed plans to leave Philadelphia for New York. But again, this may also have been a bit of a humbug - you know, a version of that old advertising line beloved by all performers as they come to the end of a long engagement: “Held Over By Popular Demand”.

By June 1793, most of Ricketts’ British company, including the Spinacutas and his younger brother Francis, had also traveled across the Atlantic and joined John Bill Ricketts in America and were adding to the attractions of the show.

In July, as he finally prepared to leave Philadelphia, Ricketts used yet another well-worn marketing ploy, and announced that he would present a charity performance at his arena whose receipts would go to the poor of the city.

General Washington, this time accompanied by his wife Martha, was once again in attendance. Philip Freneau, the editor of the anti-Federalist (and therefore anti-Washington) newspaper the National Gazette, was there as well, surveying the scene with a jaundiced eye. 

He observed with some satisfaction that the crowd did not give the President anything resembling the cheers and applause he had received early in his Administration, and even when Ricketts had offered a public toast from horseback to his Most Eminent Guest during the course of the show, response was muted.

Freneau wryly noted that something had also changed in the attitudes of the formerly anti-theater Quakers towards public performance:

Being a spectator at the late performance of Mr. Rickets, which was intended for the benefit of the poor  . . I was happy to discover [the audience] was composed of the best of our citizens, who no doubt walked to the Circus, not to gratify their eyes by viewing the exploits of a skilled horseman,  . . . or please their hearing by the trifling wit of the clown, but merely to enjoy the satisfaction of contributing to the alleviation of the distresses of the wretched. These pious gentlemen, (who lately opposed a similar amusement,) . . . evidenced the satisfaction they felt from the abilities of the performers, and the jollity of contingent circumstances. It actually appeared as if the huzzas had become a substitute for the amen.  . . . Let such men answer whether there is more criminality in attending the Theatre, than in placing themselves in a barefaced manner to view the trifling and less instructive an amusement of the Circus?

Freneau stated that he intended no criticism of Mr. Ricketts, whose horsemanship, as well as his charity, he roundly praised. No doubt fully pleased both by this good press and public approval, Ricketts gave a final show in Philadelphia on July 22nd. 

As it turned out, this was a fortunate and well-timed departure. Perhaps it even saved the lives of Ricketts and the members of his company. For, after he left, the famous unpleasant Philadelphia hot summer weather truly began to set in. And that’s when it became clear that perhaps refugees from the French island colony Saint Domingue, or as we would call it today, Haiti, having fled the slave rebellion taking place there, had brought a virus with them, as well. As the temperatures rose, the multitudes of rain barrels and stagnant puddles near the city docks became a breeding ground for a fearsome import: the larvae of the insect Aedes aegypti, the carrier of the disease commonly known as Yellow Fever. 

As the mosquitoes began to swarm in the early August heat and humidity, the deaths of two Philadelphians from this dreaded disease were reported in the crowded neighborhoods close to the Delaware River. At first, authorities blamed a shipment of rotting coffee on the docks for spreading ‘foul air,’ but despite efforts to clean the docks, and to treat the initial victims with harsh purgatives and bloodletting - a common treatment of 18th Century medicine - the disease continued to spread to more people. 

It was a portent of the widespread and deadly epidemic that was to come, one that would eventually claim 5000 or more victims in Philadelphia, or about ten percent of the city’s population, striking down people of all classes. Many of the victims did eventually recover, but those who did not would perish in a terrifying storm of delirium, blood and black vomit.   Even Mayor Powel, who had accompanied George Washington to see Ricketts perform in April, was dead of the disease by September of 1793. (Washington himself had left the city for his home in Virginia.) 

As both infection and public panic spread, desperate measures were taken by the city authorities. At the worst depths of the pestilence even the amphitheatre that had housed Ricketts’ Circus at Twelfth and Market Streets was commandeered by the government. Its boxes, stables and riding ring were soon filled not with joyous applause and the smell of well-groomed horses, but instead with sad scenes and the horrible miasma rising from both the dying and the dead.  Eventually other venues for care of the sick were found, but it is doubtful the circus building could ever again be seen in the same light-hearted manner as it had upon its first opening to the public. 

As the cold weather of late Autumn arrived in November, the mosquitoes and the Yellow Fever epidemic finally abated. President Washington, the Supreme Court, and the Congress eventually returned to their duties in the national capital. Plays and other events which tended to gather crowds had been officially suspended during the pestilence, however, and their normal operations only slowly recovered. 

Ricketts and his equestrian company had been wise to stay well away, and since they were having considerable success in other American cities, there was sufficient inducement not to hurry back to Philadelphia anyway. After lengthy and successful sojourns in New York and Charleston, South Carolina, Ricketts returned to his amphitheater at Twelfth and Market only in the Fall of 1794. It had been over a full year since his departure. 

He must have been dismayed and discouraged by the sorry state of the structure he had left behind. Not only was there the sorrow of the recent epidemic, but he must have felt the absence of the Spinacutas, who had stayed behind in Charleston, and evidently he had also lost the services of young Master Strobach, who disappears at this point in all descriptions of the company. 

There was also considerable theatrical competition from the “New Theatre”, which Reinagle and Wignall were at last opening upon Chestnut Street (after themselves being much hindered by the Yellow Fever epidemic). Additionally, there was a detachment of the Old American Company from New York, which was gamely playing an abbreviated season in the Old Southwark Theatre on South Street. On November the 3rd Ricketts gave his final show of the season in Philadelphia, and took his horses again to New York, and then by ship to Charleston, South Carolina. 

Indeed, New York City, which was already showing signs of eventually moving beyond Philadelphia in both population and commercial activity, was an important market for Ricketts. He had already commissioned the construction of a commodious performance space on the corner of Broadway and Exchange, one that was ready for him when he returned there in late 1794. 

This new building had a roof over the entire arena, more comfortable seating for up to 1500 people, and lamps and stoves for lighting and heat in the winter, and most importantly - it had a stage at one end. In fact, if we define the circus as being a combination of acrobatic feats, equestrian ability, and theatrical events (a la Astley and Hughes from our last episode) under one roof and on one program, then perhaps we must acknowledge that it was New York, and not Philadelphia, which truly housed the first circus in America. (I know that’s a bit of heresy on my part, sorry to all the circus historians.)

The Sully family, a large and talented group of comedians and pantomime artists whom he had met in South Carolina, now joined the company and they were placed in charge of creating the non-equestrian aspects of the performance. On the stage of his new “Rickett’s Amphitheatre” in New York these new comedians, clowns and musicians were integrated into his show. Ricketts even presented his first complete pantomime, a spectacular fantasy story (and, sorry to say, probably involving a fair amount of blackface portrayal) entitled The Cannibal’s Farce. Ricketts was now firmly part of the nascent theatrical scene in the New World. He remained in New York until April of 1795, and then took his company, with all this new material in his repertoire, north to Boston for May, June and July.

Indeed, one must admire Ricketts’ considerable business acumen and personal energy, in an era of daunting travel delays and difficulties in communication. While he was performing in shows, training his animals, and running his company, he was also directing from afar the construction of several large building projects in different cities. (One can just imagine the dismay of the members of any modern generation of touring performers, if they were required not only to create and act in their shows, but also to construct their own physical performance venues in every city they appeared in.) 

Ricketts must have controlled a large amount of investment capital to finance this ambitious touring and theater construction program, as well as maintaining the care of his equine and human company members. Letters of credit must have been obtained from local merchants in every city he visited, and his growing reputation perhaps made them more willing to take his bond. 

Now even more financing would be needed, because his new plans for Philadelphia were his most ambitious yet: he was building a new Circus.

This project was certainly the most grandly named of all his arenas: “Ricketts’ Amphitheatre and Art Pantheon”. There was no explanation for use of the term “Art Pantheon,” other than to note that the tendency for circus men to use grandiloquent phrasing and a bit of humbuggery can be seen from the earliest days. There was also a performance venue called the ‘’Pantheon” built in Boston in the 1780s, which Ricketts would have known, and may have borrowed the term for his new structure in Philadelphia. 

The location of the Art Pantheon in Philadelphia was significant: the southwest corner of Sixth and Chestnut Streets, directly across from his main competition in the Philadelphia market for public entertainment. This was, of course, The New Theater. Reinagle and Wignall’s troupe of professional British actors were now performing a large selection of classic and new dramas for Philadelphia’s, and indeed the country’s, elite entertainment. Still, the Chestnut Street company’s managers gazed warily as the Saturday evening crowds began gathering across the street at the Art Pantheon. 

As the early American actor William Wood would recall ruefully in his published memoirs, all theatrical managers knew that a circus performance could siphon away an audience, even more than another ‘legitimate’ company performing nearby would. “The circus proved a more serious rival than the theater . . . and inflicted much injury on us”.

Reinagle and Wignall attempted to offer plays on Saturday evenings against the equestrian shows, but soon backed off when Ricketts threatened to compete with them every day of the week if they did. The manager conceded, and an understanding was reached between the two parties. The rival companies agreed to perform on alternate days: the New Theater offered plays on Monday, Wednesday and Friday, and the circus across the street performed on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. 

It was also notable that in America’s capital city, this new circus building was to be a neighbor to the State House (nowadays known as Independence Hall) where Congress met. True, it was common in Philadelphia to have a close proximity of cultural sites and political arenas. Also nearby was the American Philosophical Society, and the building housing the Library Company. 

The President’s House, where Washington would reside until the end of his term in March of 1797, was only a block away, at the corner of 6th and Market Streets.  Directly to the west of the Pantheon stood Oeller’s Hotel, which served visiting politicians and dignitaries. Ricketts’ Circus was no longer occupying a liminal or marginal space in the city. This was a location guaranteed to gather public attention. Ricketts was willing to invest a not insignificant sum of $20,000 in its construction. 

(At this point I should describe this building, which is seen in a print which I’ve placed upon the website, and you can see in the program notes a link to it.)

Although it was made of wood and not brick or stone, the Circus, or “The Art Pantheon,” was built to attract the eye. To match the classical architectural elements of many recent buildings in Philadelphia, including that of the New Theater across Chestnut Street, it had a portico of tall classical columns fronting the building (in tribute to its namesake in Rome). Above the circular structure of the arena soared a large conical and tent-like roof, at the peak of which - fifty feet in the air - was a cast iron figure of an equestrian standing on a horse. 

On the corner of Sixth and Chestnut was a lower rectangular building which housed stables, and also a coffee shop for the public. Inside the 72-foot diameter performance space were arranged enough seats for over a thousand spectators. And at the far end was a stage. Ricketts was prepared to present a true combination of equestrian feats and theatrical dramatic action. Like its rival city of New York, Philadelphia now had a true “circus.”

Well in the tradition of all great showmen, I’m going to have to leave you in suspense about what happens next. 

Will our hero find success and fortune in Philadelphia, America’s Capital City? We’ll find out! 

Thanks for listening, and be sure to look for the next edition of the podcast. Join us for Part of Four of Ricketts' Circus in the Capital City, here on Adventures in Theater History: Philadelphia.